Splinter
by Empatheia
Summary: [Ed x Roze] Even in unlovely London, Ed finds something beautiful.


**A/N: **Written for **Numisma**, my crack dealer. I love you, dear lady!

**Title:** Splinter  
**Show:** Fullmetal Alchemist  
**Pairing:** Ed/Roze  
**Rating:** K+  
**Summary:** Even in London, there were things worth smiling about.

xoxoxox

_**Splinter**_

xoxoxox

There was something about park benches that Ed loved.

London had lovely park benches, lots of them. He loved to sit on them and watch people pass by, strangely familiar yet so completely different because this was a different world, and no matter how hard he tried to forget this was still _London_ not _Central_ and there was no one here for him.

If he closed his eyes he sometimes heard her voice.

Never anyone else's, though of course that made no sense. If everyone had their double here in this world that was simultaneously more dead and more alive than his, then why didn't he hear Sensei's voice, or Colonel Mustang's, or _Al's_?

But he didn't. Only hers, only ever hers.

She was usually laughing, which was nice because it hadn't been very pretty at the end and it could so easily have been screaming instead.

Ed was twenty-seven years old, now, and no closer to returning to his home than when he had first arrived eleven years and two inches earlier. He was still short, but less noticeably so. It was one thing that made him smile, among a crowd of things that didn't.

That way, if he ever met her again, maybe he would at least be able to look her straight in the eyes rather on an upward angle.

(_Father wants me to go back to America. I don't want to take that long boat trip again! Katie, what will I do?_)

Ed smiled and listened. This park bench was his favourite-- he heard her here most often.

(_I tell you, I've never been so bored in my entire life!_)

It was her voice, her voice exactly. He never tired of listening to it, even if it _was_ just a ghost from his memory. It was a damned beautiful ghost.

(_I mean, at first I missed Kane, but I--_)

Ed sat bolt upright and dug his fingernails into the green flaking paint of the bench. _Kane?_

It was a coincidence, of course it was, but it was a very strange one and his heart twisted in on him involuntarily. It couldn't be, it was so close to impossible it might as well be for all the difference there was between 'probably not' and 'can't be.'

(_--got over that fairly quickly. I keep feeling like there's someone else I should be looking for, but--_)

"Roze," Ed gasped, sure now despite all the evidence to the contrary. It was impossible, but it was her and he had to find her.

He stood up and brushed off his trousers. England was a fussy place. It didn't suit him at all.

_Where is she?_

He looked for her distinctive hair, but couldn't see it anywhere. He could hear her voice physically, now.

"--I also feel like someone else is looking for me, and I'm worried he won't recognize me--"

The cobblestones made muted sounds beneath his boots, but all he could hear was her voice.

"--what with this hair. I didn't want to change it, but Father insisted--"

_To what? What did you change it to?_

"--because the pink was too 'flamboyant,' can you imagine?"

There was a steady stream of people passing before him, and her voice was getting louder now. All the heads he could see were blond, dark, or rare Irish red. No pink, and no dark Ishbalian skin. Where, where, where?

"I don't really like this shade of chestnut, but everyone says it suits me so well. I suppose they can't _all_ be wrong--"

Ed clenched his fists in frustration. Eleven years of hearing her voice, and now she was right there in front of him and he couldn't bloody well see her. It was too much to bear, and Ed had always been a man of action whenever cunning failed. "Roze!" he shouted.

It was a hot summer, and his words fell dead on the flat air, but they flew just long enough.

A reddish head turned. "Katie, did someone just call me?"

The dark head next to her also turned, then shook slightly. "No, I didn't hear anything. Are you all right, Rose?"

The crowd was suddenly thinner, as though to pave the way for Edward's feet, but he couldn't move a muscle.

"I don't know," Rose replied. "I feel very strange, like someone's watching me. It isn't entirely unpleasant, though."

"_Roze!_" Ed shouted again, and lifted one foot. It felt like he had the entire world attached to it, like instead of moving himself he was moving everything else around him.

"There! Again! Are you sure you don't hear that, Katie?"

She turned around, and he saw her face.

The old Roze was almost completely gone. This girl was pale and dark-eyed, and her hair was the colour of polished cherrywood, but it was still her. He would have known her anywhere. 

"Roze," he whispered, overcome. It wasn't just that she was someone from his world, someone he knew, though that was part of it. It also wasn't that she was Roze, the person he had almost loved and fallen short of. It was both and more and if he couldn't touch her within the next ten seconds he was sure he was going to fall apart or explode or shatter or _something_.

The world kindly let go of his feet, and he stumbled across the thoroughfare to stand wild-eyed before her.

"Roze," he said.

She looked at him, and he realized inanely that in this world, she was shorter than him by an inch and a half.

"I know you," she said.

"Roze," he repeated stupidly, unable to form any other word but her name. "I'm sorry, Roze, but I really can't--" He choked, gave up, and wrapped himself around her as though she was everything he'd left behind.

She gasped, but did not move away. Her friend-- Katie?-- spluttered and batted ineffectually at his right arm. He almost laughed and told her how little good hitting that arm would do, but he'd forgotten how to talk.

"Roze, Roze, Roze..."

"Who are you?" she said quietly into his chest. "Why am I not afraid of you?"

The tie holding his hair back came undone and gold surrounded both their heads. "It's fine if you don't remember," he said. "We've never met before anyway."

The sun was red through the London smog, red as eyes in Ishbal.

XoxoxoxoxoxoX

**A/N: **Sorry it took so long, Numi!


End file.
